Thursday 7th July 2022

We’re still all at Musket Cove; Paul and Trish check out tomorrow, to continue their sojourn with the third Oyster World Rally. Their next stop New Caledonia, and then on to Australia, while we remain here in the beautiful Islands of Fiji.

We planned another (our last together for a while) lunch out. Paul found a resort restaurant on Malolo Island that we hadn’t visited before, and thought it would be fun to try. It was only a short walk from Musket Cove. I’m not going to mention the name of the resort we went to for lunch, but can’t resist sharing our experience there.

We arrived early, and chose a table outside overlooking the bay. There was a man playing a guitar and singing (quite loudly), and our table was quite close to the pool, (with all the happy, screaming children). With my rapidly declining hearing, I struggle these days with conversation in loud locations, and can’t help but wonder why music has to be played so loudly in restaurants where people are attempting to enjoy a meal and have conversation.

After a while, having given up waiting for a waiter, Paul went to locate the menus, “for how many people?” the waitress asked him “four” Paul replied, so she handed him two menu’s!

The menu choices were sparse, and when eventually a waitress arrived to take our orders, the choices Bob and I had made were not available, so I decided upon a pizza, thinking they couldn’t be out of that!

Having looked at the wine list and made our selection, we were told none of the wines we wanted were available, they had one bottle of Sauvignon Blanc (only one), so we had that, but I think the bottle must have been left out in the sun at some point as it really wasn’t good, (it was a well known wine, from a reputable vineyard), we drank it anyway.

When we later tried to order another bottle of wine, we were told there was only one available, and it was the most expensive bottle on the menu! It was our last meal out together for a while, so ‘what the heck’ we ordered the wine, disappointingly, it wasn’t great either despite it’s enormous price tag. However, what was fantastic was the company, and what was plentiful was the laughter. The guitar player had taken a break, but was now back in his corner, fully refreshed, and singing at full volume. It’s rare that I hear someone singing more off key than myself, I can’t sing a note, I sound like an alley cat with a sore throat howling at the moon; I have rhythm, and I can dance, but I have never been able to sing a single note in key, this didn’t stop me though, the four of us joined in with each song and applauded loudly after each one. The man with the guitar singing, seemed to appreciate our solidarity. The food was not great, the wine was terrible, the location was noisy, the service a long way from brilliant, but despite all of that, we had a really fun afternoon laughing our way through.